Hampton Court Palace

This article is about Hampton Court Castle in London. For a description of the homonymous mansion in Herefordshire, see Hampton Court (Herefordshire) .

West front of Hampton Court Palace

Hampton Court Palace is a castle in the far south west of London on the left bank of the Thames in the borough of Richmond upon Thames . The castle was a preferred residence of the English and British kings from 1528 to 1737. Originally it was built in the Tudor style, towards the end of the 17th century and in the 18th century, large parts were rebuilt in the English Baroque style. With its enormous dimensions, its magnificent interior and its extensive gardens, it is considered to be one of the main works of the Tudor style and the Baroque in England.

The castle saw several royal weddings, births and deaths. Henry VIII married his sixth wife Catherine Parr here . His son Edward VI. was born and baptized in the castle, his mother Jane Seymour and the wife of Jacob I, Anna died in the castle, and Wilhelm III. suffered a riding accident in the park, of which he died a little later.

history

The estate in the Middle Ages

Since 1236 the Order of St. John has maintained an estate here. Excavations and documents show that the farm consisted of a large barn and a stone administrative building, but probably had no or only very limited living space. In the 14th century, a residential building was added to the complex, as the estate was used as an overnight accommodation due to its favorable location between the royal palaces in Sheen and Byfleet . After the royal palace at Byfleet was abandoned at the beginning of the 15th century, Hampton lost its function as an overnight accommodation again. Like many other estates, Hampton was no longer cultivated by the Johannites themselves, but leased out. The first named tenant was the courtier Giles Daubeney , who took over the estate in 1494. Daubeney became Lord Chamberlain of Henry VII the following year . Since the king again used the nearby Richmond Castle as his residence, he also visited Daubeney on his Hampton estate several times. Daubeney therefore had various extensions made, but died in 1508.

Hampton Court, drawing from 1708

The castle in the Tudor period

The Archbishop of York , Thomas Wolsey , leased the estate in 1514 for 99 years. He became cardinal and lord chancellor the following year, and over the next seven years he built the 14th-century house into a magnificent country palace based on the designs of Henry Redman . The palace contained not only a luxurious new bishop's apartment, but also three guest apartments for the royal family and a high chapel. Wolsey has been heavily criticized for his lifestyle, and especially for his magnificent York Place and Hampton Court palaces ; In 1522, the poet John Skelton mocked with his verse "Why Come Ye Not to Court?" that the royal court was the excellency, but the court of Hampton Court had the superiority. Since Wolsey could not obtain the divorce of Henry VIII from the Pope from his first wife Catherine of Aragon , he finally lost the king's favor and in 1528 both York Place and Hampton Court, both of which were taken over by Henry VIII.

Hampton Court quickly became Henry VIII's new favorite residence. In just ten years he built an enormous sum of £ 62,000 - around £ 18 million in today's value - on the castle. When the work was completed around 1540, it was considered to be one of the most magnificent and modern castles in England. The castle had a magnificent chapel, a large banquet hall, tennis courts, bowling alleys, gardens and an almost 450 hectare wildlife park. The castle had a large, water-flushed toilet with 28 seats, the large house of relief , the water was supplied with the help of lead pipes from Coombe Hill near Kingston, 5 km away .

All six of Heinrich's wives lived in the palace and each received lavishly designed apartments. Heinrich had his own living quarters rebuilt and renovated at least six times. There were also living quarters for his children and for a large number of courtiers, guests and servants.

The king received numerous guests and visitors from all over Europe in the castle. The most famous of these was the six-day visit by the French ambassador in August 1546, when the palace accommodated around two hundred guests in addition to Henry's court, which numbered around 1300. For this purpose, the castle was surrounded by a magnificent tent camp. The children who followed Heinrich on the throne also used the castle as a residence. Elizabeth I had some minor modifications made, including that of the eastern kitchen.

The age of the Stuarts

The relatively modest life at Elisabeth's court changed under her successor Jakob I. Jakob often went hunting in the wildlife park, balls, banquets and masquerades as well as numerous, increasingly elaborate theater performances were now held at court. There is evidence that Shakespeare and the King's Men played Christmas 1603 in the great hall in front of the king. In 1604, a synod of the Anglican Church took place in the castle under Jacob's presidency, at which the King James Bible , the most influential translation of the Bible into English, was commissioned. Jacob's son and successor Karl I had some renovations carried out, including a new tennis court and new fountains with fountains in the garden. Karl was also an avid art collector and acquired numerous paintings and sculptures by well-known artists. The most important of these acquisitions is the Triumph of Julius Caesar by Andrea Mantegna . This masterpiece of Renaissance painting, created around 1485, was bought from the Dukes of Mantua in 1629 on behalf of the king and brought to Hampton Court in 1630.

Detail from Mantegna's Triumph of Julius Caesar

During the English Civil War , the castle was occupied by parliamentary troops in 1645. The royal possessions were recorded and then largely sold, the ornaments of the chapel removed by the radical Puritans . In 1647 Charles I was captured and taken to Hampton Court. He was held in honorable detention and enjoyed numerous freedoms. After three months he took the opportunity to escape, escaped from his bedroom into the garden and with a boat waiting for him on the Thames. However, his escape ended on the Isle of Wight , where he was captured again, brought to London and finally executed on January 30, 1649.

During the Commonwealth , the Lord Protector Cromwell used the castle as a country and hunting seat from 1654. He also kept Caesar's triumph in his private possession, his daughter Maria married in the royal chapel.

Charles II preferred Windsor Castle as his country residence and stayed less often in Hampton Court. However, he had an apartment set up in the southeast corner of the palace for his mistress Barbara Villiers and his illegitimate children. These baroque furnished rooms were in complete contrast to the rooms furnished in Tudor style.

Expansion in the baroque period

Under Wilhelm III. and Maria II , the castle was decisively rebuilt. Soon after taking the throne, they commissioned Christopher Wren to remodel and expand the castle. Wren was based on Hardouin-Mansart's design for the new Versailles Palace, but combined brick and stone to avoid a monotonous facade. His original plan was to demolish the entire palace with the exception of the Great Hall. Since neither the time nor the financial means were available, he was only able to rebuild the south and east wings as well as the fountain courtyard in the Baroque style. Work began in May 1689. Since Wilhelm expected construction to progress quickly, the construction was hasty. In December 1689, a large part of the new south wing collapsed again. Two construction workers were killed and eleven injured. The investigation into the cause of the accident led to bitter arguments, but it quickly became clear that the cause was the hasty construction. When the work resumed, it was carried out more slowly and carefully.

Due to the death of the queen in April 1694, the work was interrupted and the building remained unfinished. Only after the end of the Palatinate War of Succession in 1697 did the king once again have the time and the means to continue building. After the Whitehall Palace burned down in 1698 , Wilhelm had the construction of his new castle accelerated. Instead of Wren, Wilhelm appointed his previous deputy, William Talman, as construction manager, who finally completed the new building at a lower price than Wren estimated.

Wren's south facade with the Privy Garden

Wren and Talman completely redesigned the east and south facades of the palace. The multifaceted facade from the Tudor period with numerous towers and chimneys was replaced by a large, elegant baroque facade that dominates the garden view of the palace to this day. Magnificent parade rooms were created in the castle, which were furnished by the best artists of the time in England, and the gardens were also redesigned as Baroque gardens . Numerous new plants, including many exotic ones from Queen Maria's collection, enriched the garden. Wilhelm died in 1702 when the interior was not yet finished. His successor Anne came to hunt Hampton Court in spite of her poor health, but her main residences were Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace , so that further interior work on the castle was halted. It was not until George II , as Prince of Wales , showed interest in the castle again and had John Vanbrugh complete the showroom. After his accession to the throne, George II and his wife Caroline lived more frequently in Hampton Court after 1727, where they had some rooms redecorated. After the falling out with his eldest son Friedrich Ludwig and the death of his wife, the king and his court left Hampton Court Palace in 1737.

From 1737 until today

Since George III. did not live in the castle, from the 1760s beneficiaries of the crown , people earned for the crown or land, received free right of residence in the castle. Over time, this resulted in countless apartments of different sizes and furnishings. Most of the apartments were very spacious, if not always luxurious. The residents included Olave Baden-Powell , the widow of the founder of the Boy Scout Movement, Grand Duchess Xenia of Russia , the governor Wilhelm V , who was expelled from the Netherlands , a grandson of George II and the physicist Michael Faraday . In 1838 Queen Victoria opened the palace's state rooms for viewing. Large parts of the castle were restored between 1838 and 1851, the great hall, the gatehouse and the west facade were "re-tudorized". A second restoration between 1875 and 1900 took more account of historical models. In 1986 a fire damaged parts of Hampton Court Palace. The fire broke out in one of the beneficiary apartments above the king's parade room. The ceiling construction chosen by Christopher Wren in this part of the palace prevented the fire from quickly spreading to the rooms below. The fire was discovered early enough to save the portable works of art from the king's parade rooms. However, the ceiling paintings and the decorative carvings of Grinling Gibbons nailed high up on the paneling were damaged by fire and extinguishing water. A gibbon carving more than six feet long framing the side of a door burned completely. The repairs took six years and were not fully completed until 1995, when the royal apartments were restored to their 18th century state.

On October 27, 2005, an informal EU summit took place in the great hall under the presidency of Tony Blair .

Today the palace is owned by Historic Royal Palaces , an independent non-profit organization that looks after the unused royal palaces. Some royal beneficiaries still live in apartments in the palace, but the royal apartments, kitchens and large parts of the palace and gardens can be visited.

investment

The huge complex, covering an area of ​​2.43 hectares, consists of two castles: in the west the Tudor-style complex, in the southeast the baroque palace.

Astronomical clock above the gate tower between the main courtyard and the clock courtyard

The access to the castle leads from the trophy gate built at the end of the 17th century to the west facade of the castle. As a result of the restorations in the 19th century, this two- to three-story brick facade appears again today in the Tudor style with battlements, towers and numerous ornate chimneys. A gate tower, the so-called gatehouse, leads to the main courtyard, which most closely resembles the image of the castle in the 16th century. The clock courtyard is reached through the gate tower opposite, the Anne-Boleyn-Tor . The courtyard got its name from the astronomical clock on the gate tower , which was built in 1540 by Nicolas Oursian . The north side of the clock yard is occupied by the great hall, the colonnade on the south side comes from the renovation by Christopher Wren. A neo-Gothic gate from 1732 leads into the Brunnenhof, which is surrounded by the four-winged palace buildings in Wrens. An arcade runs around this courtyard on the ground floor. The piano nobile with the parade rooms is on the first floor , while the other upper floors contained apartments for courtiers.

The east and south facades facing the garden are the work of Christopher Wren. The two wings are four-storey, the middle part of the east facade is emphasized by a triangular gable with a relief by Caius Gabriel Cibber , the middle part of the south facade by a facing with light Portland stone .

The northern part of the castle consists of the kitchens and farm buildings, which are arranged around several smaller courtyards.

Interior

Large parts of the interior have been preserved or restored. The rooms are mainly furnished with paintings and tapestries from the 16th and 17th centuries, which belong to the Royal Collection . As part of various sightseeing tours, the following areas of the castle can be visited today:

Henry VIII's State Apartments

The lavishly furnished private rooms of Henry VIII were demolished at the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, numerous rooms from the Tudor period have been preserved or restored, including:

• The Royal Chapel, originally built under Cardinal Wolsey. In 1535 it received a new, splendidly carved and vaulted wooden ceiling. Most of the rest of the furnishings date from Queen Anne's time and from the 19th century. The wall paintings are by James Thornhill , the altarpiece by Grinling Gibbons.
• the great hall , the largest room in the castle. The 32 m long, 12 m wide and 18 m high hall was built in 1532 and replaced an older, smaller hall. The hall served as a dining room and as an entrance hall to the state chambers behind. It has a magnificent hammer-beam vault , the walls are covered with tapestries depicting the life of Abraham , which were made around 1540 by the Brussels weaver Willem Kempaneer and were probably intended to decorate the hall from the beginning.
• The large guard room once housed the Yeomen of the Guard , the royal bodyguard. The hall was changed under Wren, but the ceiling decorations and tapestries are from the Tudor period.
• The Haunted Gallery was built under Cardinal Wolsey and connected the royal chapel to the rest of the castle. It got its name from Katharina Howard , the fifth wife of Henry VIII, who tore herself away from her guards when she was accused of adultery and was about to be taken to the Tower . She wanted to beg the king for mercy in the chapel, but was caught up in this corridor and brought back screaming loudly. The king is said to have continued his devotion unmoved, and since then the spirit of Catherine is said to have been walking loudly through the corridor, moaning. The gallery is decorated with tapestries from the 16th century.

The kitchens from the Tudor period

One of the kitchens from the time of Henry VIII.

The installation of new kitchens for his court of 600 people was one of Cardinal Wolsey's first building measures. For Henry VIII's court of 1200 people, the kitchens were expanded in 1529 to over 50 rooms with an area of ​​3350 m², which were located around several courtyards. In the 18th century the kitchens were converted into apartments and their restoration was completed in 1991.

The Wolsey Rooms and the Renaissance Painting Gallery

On the upper floor of the clock courtyard are the Wolsey apartments, which were built around 1520 and were probably the cardinal's private rooms. The six rooms were rebuilt in the 18th century, but still contain many furnishings such as chimneys, paneling and ceilings from the time it was built. The pictures in the adjoining Renaissance painting gallery are exchanged from time to time. The inventory includes works from the 16th and 17th centuries, among others by German and Flemish painters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder , Pieter Bruegel the Elder , Joos van Cleve and Quentin Massys , as well as by Italian masters such as Correggio , Dosso Dossi and Lorenzo Lotto , Franciabigio , Parmigianino and Tizian .

The King's Parade Room

The parade rooms in the piano nobile of the south wing, built by Wren towards the end of the 17th century, replaced the state apartments of Henry VIII. After the fire damage suffered in 1986, the rooms were restored until 1995 and are today, as at the time of their completion in 1700, furnished in the splendid Baroque style.

• The stairwell was painted by Antonio Verrio , the paintings glorify William III. The wrought iron railings are by Jean Tijou .
• The walls of the guardroom are covered with more than 3,000 muskets, pistols, swords and other weapons in symmetrical patterns.
• In the reception room there are two tapestries that were made for Whitehall Palace in 1540 and have adorned this room since 1700.
• In the large reception room there are three tapestries belonging to the series The Life of Abraham from the Great Hall.
• The large bedchamber was used almost exclusively for the court ceremony. The room is furnished with magnificent tapestries, the carvings of the ceiling and wall friezes are by Grinling Gibbons, the ceiling painting by Antonio Verrio. He also created the ceiling painting in the adjoining small bedroom, the actual royal bedroom.

Other rooms are the dining room, the salon and the cabinet. A back staircase leads to the ground floor, where the king's three-room private apartment is located. The originals of the statues from the king's private garden are now in the orangery , which is also on the ground floor , where they have been replaced by copies. The private salon, the private cabinet and the private dining room of the king are adjacent to the orangery. A portrait of Wilhelm III hangs in the private salon. and Maria II by Adam Frans van der Meulen , in the dining room the beauties of Hampton Court , portraits of the "most dignified court ladies in the service of Her Majesty the Queen" by Godfrey Kneller .

The Queen's Parade Room

The Queen's parade rooms are located in the piano nobile of the north and east wings around the Brunnenhof. The furnishing of the rooms was interrupted after the death of Queen Maria in 1694, after the resumption of construction, Wilhelm had the gallery and the study completed. Queen Anne had the drawing room completed, the other rooms remained unfinished. Between 1716 and 1718 the Prince and Princess of Wales, later George II and his wife Caroline, had the private apartment and a few other rooms furnished. However, the decoration of these rooms was not completed until after her accession to the throne in 1727.

• The Queen's staircase was not decorated by William Kent until 1734 . The west wall is adorned by Mercury presenting the liberal arts to Apollo and Diana , a painting created by Gerrit van Honthorst in 1628 depicting Charles I and his wife as Apollo and Diana and George Villiers as Mercury.
• The adjoining guard room was probably decorated by John Vanbrugh . The fireplace, created by Grinling Gibbons, is framed by statues of bodyguards.
• In the reception room there are three important paintings: Joseph and Potiphar's Wife by Orazio Gentileschi , Wild Boar Hunt by Frans Snyders and Satyrs and Sleeping Nymphs by Snyders and Rubens .
• Four paintings by Sebastiano Ricci hang in the dining room, and the marble fireplace is by Grinling Gibbons.
• The salon occupies the middle of the east facade and grants a view over the 1 km long canal and the accompanying avenues. The murals created by Antonio Verrio were not uncovered again until 1899, because George II had the walls covered and Mategna's Triumph Caesar hung in the room.
• The splendid bed from 1715 is still in the bedroom. The ceiling paintings are by James Thornhill, the tapestries are from the 17th century.
• The large gallery is furnished with tapestries from Brussels depicting the life story of Alexander the Great .

The audience room, the cabinet and some smaller rooms also belong to the parade rooms.

The Georgian rooms

In the piano nobile around the Brunnenhof are the Georgian rooms, which are furnished as they were in 1737, when the king and his court last used the castle.

• The three rooms of the Cumberland Apartment , which were furnished in 1732 for the Duke of Cumberland , the second eldest son of George II, face the Uhrenhof . Behind it is the small Wolsey cabinet with a ceiling created around 1530/1540 and paintings from the early 16th century.
• The connecting gallery is adorned with portraits of the beauties of Windsor , a series of portraits of the most beautiful women at the court of Charles II, made by Peter Lely from 1662 to 1665 .
• The cardboard gallery in the south wing was built as a picture gallery to exhibit Raphael's The Deeds of the Apostles . These drawings on cardboard, which Raphael made around 1516 as templates for the Apostle carpets , were acquired by Charles I in 1623. The apostle carpets were intended as tapestries for the Sistine Chapel . The original cardboard boxes were handed over to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1865 ; copies drawn by Henry Cooke in 1697 hang instead in the gallery .
• The Queen's private apartments are in the east wing. These rooms were originally designed by Wren for Maria II, but were not completed after 1694. In 1716 they were set up for the Prince and Princess of Wales. They were restored in 1995 and appear today in their condition from 1730. In addition to a few smaller rooms, the private apartment includes the private salon, the private bedroom, the dressing room and bathroom, the dining room and the domed prayer room. Some of the rooms are covered with Persian carpets from the 16th and 17th centuries. a. by Christoph Schwartz , Willem van de Velde the Elder and the Younger as well as portrait paintings by Joseph Highmore , Godfrey Kneller and Enoch Seeman .

Garden and park

The east facade with the great canal

Hampton Court once had one of the most magnificent gardens in Europe. Presumably there was already a garden for Cardinal Wolsey on the site of today's Brunnenhof. Henry VIII had a garden laid out in front of the south facade. Andre Mollet laid out the great canal for Charles II from 1661, which emanated from the palace on a central axis and corresponded to the avenues starting in a star shape from the palace square. Parallel to the baroque expansion of the palace by Christopher Wren, the gardens were laid out based on the French model.

Today the castle is surrounded by a 24 hectare garden, which is divided into three areas:

• The Privy Garden , the royal private garden, located south of the palace , was restored in 1995 as a formally laid out Baroque garden in its state from 1702. It consists of four broderie parterres around a circular pond and was originally laid out in 1689 by Henry Wise . At the southern tip, along the winding bank of the Thames, runs an ornate, wrought-iron fence by Jean Tijou. West of the Privy Garden is a knot garden laid out in 1924 in the style of the Tudor period and the pond garden consisting of flower beds . The lower orangery now serves as an exhibition space for Mantegna's The Triumph of Caesar . Next to the orangiere is The great Vine, planted in 1769 by Lancelot Capability Brown , in a greenhouse . With a circumference of 3.8 m and branches up to 75 m long, the vine is considered to be the largest vine in the world. On the banks of the Thames is the Banqueting House , an intimate dining room built in 1700 and painted inside by Antonio Verrio.
• Wilhelm III had the eastern garden. by Daniel Marot as a semicircular fountain garden with twelve fountains, boxwood borders and statues. The fountains, flower beds and statues were removed under Queen Anne from 1707, and from 1710 the garden was surrounded by semicircular canals. The garden finally got its present form with lawns and clipped yew trees and holly trees in the 19th century. At the northern end of the Breite Weg , which runs along the palace facade, is the tennis court, which was built around 1620 and is still used as a sports facility today.

The Great Vine , the largest vine in the world

• In the Tudor period, north of the castle was the large orchard and the tournament area, which had five towers for the spectators. William III. From 1690 Henry Wise laid out the northern garden as a wilderness with high trimmed hedges. The famous trapezoidal maze is the only remaining part of this garden. About 800 m of winding paths lead through the approximately 1350 m² maze through two meter high yew hedges. The rest of the garden is now a tree-lined meadow. The former tournament area is now divided into smaller gardens, one of the observation towers is still preserved and is located next to the garden restaurant.

To the east of the gardens, the 304 hectare Home Park stretches in a loop through the Thames . Giles Daubeney had an approximately 120 hectare deer park set up. A herd of fallow deer (around 270 animals) lives in the park today, and several avenues and the approximately 1 km long canal lead through the park. The Bushy Park is located north of the wildlife park .

In early July, the park has hosted the one-week Hampton Court Palace Flower Show , the largest annual flower show in the world , organized by the Royal Horticultural Society every year since 1990 .

Others

In addition to the ghost of Katharina Howard, there are other ghosts in the castle, including those of Sibell Penn, Eduard VI's nanny. and by Jane Seymour.

At the 2012 Summer Olympics , the palace was the start and finish for the individual time trial of road bike races .

literature

• Simon Thurley: Hampton Court Palace . Official castle guide (German). Historic Royal Palaces, 2001.
• Nigel R. Jones: Architecture of England, Scotland, and Wales . Greenwood Press, Westport 2005, ISBN 978-0-313-31850-4 , p. 122 ff.

Web links

Commons : Hampton Court Palace  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

• Official website of the castle
• The National Heritage List for England: Hampton Court Palace
• The Royal Tennis Court at Hampton Court (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ David Esterly : The Lost Carving - A Journey to the Heart of Making . London 2013, ISBN 978-0-7156-4649-6 ., Chapter I: A Metaphor for everything.
2. ^ Image material for The Lost Carving , in which David Esterly deals with the restoration of the burnt ornamental wall decoration of Grinling Gibbons , accessed on January 4, 2014
3. ↑ Guinness World of Records 2006 Verlag der Rekorde, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-89681-009-0 , p. 97
4. ^ RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. Retrieved December 15, 2012 . 
5. ↑ Hampton Court Palace - Road Cycling. Retrieved December 15, 2012 . 

Coordinates: 51 ° 24 ′ 11 ″  N , 0 ° 20 ′ 13 ″  W.